❓ Question: The Russian Investigative Committee released new data on atrocities committed by the Ukrainian armed forces in the Russkoye Porechnoye village, Kursk Region. The report, in particular, quotes forensic experts and servicemen as saying of the inhuman cruelty with which civilians were killed. Will Russia demand that these crimes be condemned by international organisations?

💬 Maria Zakharova: The Russian Foreign Ministry has already provided a detailed assessment of these atrocities by the Kiev regime.

Photos and videos were distributed during the briefing, which SHOCKED the journalists.

Correspondents, who had seen a lot, could not believe that such inhuman cruelty, exposing the beastly nature of the terrorist scum, was possible in the 21st century. The information that has emerged, including the fact that Ukrainian Nazis opened fierce fire during the evacuation of killed civilians from the village of Russkoye Porechnoye by Russian troops, is another testament to the criminal nature of the terrorist regime in Kiev.

Obviously, the extremists knew that they were committing a grave crime and tried to destroy evidences.

#KievRegimeCrimes

We believe it is crucial to inform the broadest international community of the crimes committed in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kursk Region. Russian news agencies already possess an exhaustive body of evidence of neo-Nazi punitive operations against civilians protected by a number of international documents including provisions of the binding Fourth Geneva Convention.

Particular focus should be given to a selective nature of persecution of the elderly, the most socially vulnerable members of the occupied population.

The supporting materials distributed by the Russia Investigative Committee clearly show signs of grave offenses committed during the armed conflict: hands bound with duct tapes, traces of torture, bruises from blows, gunshot wounds, bodies of people whose deaths resulted from hours of abuse by perpetrators, evidence of rape and other violent sexual acts.

The Main Military Investigative Directorate of the Russian Investigative Committee has already initiated a criminal case against members of Ukrainian armed units implicated in the terrorist act against civilians in the Kursk Region under Article 205, Part 3, Paragraph (b) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Terrorist Act Causing Death to an Individual). A number of Ukrainian servicemen from the 92nd Detached Assault Brigade were found to have been involved in the crimes.

We believe that the bloody nature of the Kiev troops' actions in the Kursk Region should be widely exposed on international platforms such as the United Nations, the OSCE and their relevant structures, recorded by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and become the subject of proceedings by international human rights mechanisms, including NGOs.

We are certain that the real nature of Zelensky's junta was most clearly manifested in Russkoye Porechnoye, whose name has obviously become one of the driving factors for the Russophobic regime in Kiev and its armed gangs: it is against everything Russian that the current post-Maidan authorities are fighting with support of the “collective West.”

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🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's article "The UN Charter Should Become the Legal Foundation of a Multipolar World", published in Russia in Global Affairs magazine (February 4, 2025)

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💬 80 years ago, on 4 February 1945, the leaders of the victors of World War II ― the Soviet Union, the United States, and Britain ― opened the Yalta Conference to determine the contours of the postwar world. <...>

One result of the negotiations was the creation of the United Nations and the approval of the UN Charter, which to this day remains the main source of international law. The Charter set forth goals and principles for countries’ behavior, which are designed to ensure their peaceful coexistence and sustained development.

The principle of the sovereign equality of states laid the foundation for the Yalta-Potsdam system: none may claim dominance, as all are formally equal regardless of territory, population, military capabilities, or other metrics.

<...> The UN-based world order fulfills its main task ― safeguarding everyone against a new world war. Truly, “the UN has not brought us to paradise but saved us from hell.”

🔹 Key points:

• The veto power enshrined in the Charter ― which is not a ‘privilege,’ but a burden of special responsibility for safeguarding peace ― serves as a solid barrier against reckless decisions and provides room for finding compromise based on a balance of interests.

• The UN has served as a unique universal platform for developing collective responses to common challenges, maintaining international peace and security and promoting socio-economic development.

• It was at the UN that, with a key role played by the USSR, the foundation was laid for the multipolar world that is now emerging before our eyes.

• The UN-centric order is thus based on international ― truly universal ― law, from which it follows that every state should abide by that law.

• Russia, like the majority of the world community, has never had any difficulty doing so. But the West was never cured of its syndrome of exceptionalism, and retains its neocolonial habits, i.e. living at the expense of others. Interstate relations based on respect for international law were, from the very beginning, not to the West’s liking.

• One manifestation of the ‘rules-based order’ was Washington’s policy of geopolitically absorbing Eastern Europe. Russia has been forced to eliminate its explosive consequences with the Special Military Operation.

❗️ Brazen attempts to reorder the world in one’s own interest, violating UN principles, may bring instability, confrontation, and even catastrophe. Given the current level of international tensions, a reckless rejection of the Yalta-Potsdam system, with the UN and its Charter at its core, will inevitably lead to chaos.

🇺🇳 Russia is ready for joint honest work to balance parties’ interests and to strengthen the legal principles of international relations. <...>

The most important thing, according to Russia's President Vladimir Putin, is “to regain an understanding of what the United Nations was created for, and to follow the principles that are set forth in its founding documents.” This should be the foremost guideline for regulating international relations in the multipolar era that has dawned.